Call the Midwife

Created by Heidi Thomas, from a memoir by Jennifer Worth; BBC and PBS

This veteran show, airing its 12th season, continued to portray skilled, autonomous nurse-midwives delivering babies and providing other effective care to poor patients in 1960s London.

Virgin River

Created by Sue Tenney; Netflix

This romance-intensive series, airing its fourth season, featured nurse practitioner Mel Monroe, who periodically provided expert and sensitive care to those in her small California town.

Baymax!

Created by Don Hall; Disney+

The first season of this amusing limited series showed young viewers an expert and holistic (if a bit invasive) robot nurse character making a real difference in the health of his community. See our review of the 2014 movie.

Chicago Med

Created by Dick Wolf and Matt Olmstead; NBC

This drama, though physician-centric, continued to show nurses playing important roles in emergency care, with one major character an ED charge nurse and another a wise hospital executive. A third nurse character who had departed returned for a few episodes and showed her new nurse practitioner knowledge, though she was mostly there to renew her romance with a physician.

"All We Have Is Now," episode of The Resident, season 5 episode 19, April 19; written by Joy Blake; Fox

This hospital show's two minor nurse characters usually displayed limited skills and clear subordination to its many physicians, who provided all meaningful care, even in an episode (season 5 episode 14) that tried to show the value of nursing with a plotline about Covid-era travel nursing. But season 5 episode 19 offered an amazingly authoritative portrayal of a hospice nurse caring for the dying mother of the show's most arrogant surgeon character. This nurse calmly displayed expertise and advanced psychosocial skills, guiding the patient and her son through the difficult process, earning the surgeon's respect—and even some humility from him.

"Idle Nigerians," episode of Bob Hearts Abishola, season 4 episode 9, December 5; written by Chuck Lorre, Gina Yashere, Matt Ross, Carla Filisha, Marla Dumont, Jamarcus Turner; CBS

Sadly, this sitcom's competent main nurse character still seems to be headed for medical school, reinforcing the wannabe-physician stereotype. But this episode included a nurses' strike caused at least in part by understaffing, with regular senior nurse character Gloria leading the strike and advocating forcefully on the picket line.

The Good Nurse

Directed by Tobias Lindholm; screenplay by Krysty Wilson-Cairns; based on the book by Charles Graeber

This Netflix film focused on a strong, skilled, real-life ICU nurse who finds herself working closely with a serial killer in the dystopia of modern U.S. hospital care.

The Wonder

Directed by Sebastian Lelio; written by Emma Donoghue, Sebastian Lelio, and Alice Burch; based on the book by Emma Donoghue

This Netflix film focused on a strong, skilled, 19th century English "Nightingale nurse" who must unravel the mystery of a young Irish patient who has apparently not eaten for months. See our review of the book.

Lauren Hilgers

"Nurses Have Finally Learned What They're Worth," The New York Times, February 15. This massive feature in the Times Magazine’s "Future of Work" issue surveys the desperate state of U.S. nursing, with a focus on the explosion of travel nursing during Covid.

Sarah DiGregorio

"Hospitals desperately need staff. But capping travel nurses’ pay won’t help," The Washington Post, March 14. The journalist's powerful opinion piece argues that limiting the cost of travel nurses will not solve our deeper problem: that society continues to undervalue nursing.

"The Documentary: The health wagon," BBC World Service,

produced by Victoria Ferran, Just Radio, November 19. A powerful radio documentary that profiled the Health Wagon, a nurse-led community health initiative that has been serving rural southwest Virginia since 1980.

Lucy King and Jonah M. Kessel

"We Know the Real Cause of the Crisis in Our Hospitals. It’s Greed," The New York Times, January 19. A strong Times "opinion video" that offered nurses a chance to describe the negative effects of understaffing and to advocate for the minimum staffing ratios that could help.

Kristen Bartlett and Mike Drucker, executive producers,

"If Nurses Are F*cked, We’re F*cked," Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, TBS, May 26. This segment of the political-comedy show focused on the poor working conditions that plague U.S. nursing and advocated strongly for minimum staffing ratios. Bee concluded by urging viewers to support federal legislation that would mandate those ratios. Click here to join that effort.

Johnson & Johnson

"Where Would the World Be Without Nurses?"

This 30-second television ad airing on prime time U.S. television in November and December saluted nurses for their life-saving, advocacy, innovation, and even community health work. The images accompanying these statements conveyed to attentive viewers at least a fleeting sense of the nature of that work, for example by showing nurses using advanced technology.

Pope Francis

For continued efforts to honor nurses who have saved his life, most recently Vatican nurse Massimiliano Strappetti, who had identified a serious intestinal problem in 2021, as reported by the Associated Press and others, August 4.

Nola the Nurse

Created by nurse Sharmaine Lawson

Barbie Doll Career Nurse Standard

Created by Mattel

Marion Leary

This University of Pennsylvania nursing professor does it all, in wide-ranging efforts to support nurses and share their expertise with the public - through her Amplify Nursing podcast, the Nursing Story Slam, Penn Nursing’s Innovation Ecosystem, social media, nursing media, and traditional mainstream media, including opinion pieces in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Theresa Brown

For various media advocacy for nurses, including "Self Care Isn't the Cure To Burnout ", asasdfasfaa and "Hoasdafas", CNN, Octoas 0.

Kathleen Bartholomew

For various media advocacy for nurses, including "WA must take responsibility for nurses’ safety", asasdfasfaa and "Hoasdafas", CNasdN, December 13.

Robin Cogan

The Relentless School Nurse has a weekly blog, a monthly column in My American Nurse, and a very active social media presence

Tyler Kuhk

This nurse practitioner campaigns persistently for better health care, less ignorance, and less hate; he has worked hard to counter anti-vax forces within nursing despite intense hostility and resistance.

Christina NP

An authoritative nurse practitioner who uses her popular TikTok account ChristinaaaaaaaNP to dispel Covid-19 myths in a fiercely comic style.

Julie McFadden

For her influential TikTok account HospiceNurseJulie, where she sensitively educates the public about end-of-life care and death.

Sarah Warren

For her influential Instagram accounts shesinscrubs and Don't Clock Out, where she works to help struggling nurses through community peer support and provides mental health resources for healthcare workers; and for selfcareunitpod, a podcast that helps nurses with their mental health.

Diana Mason — Healthcetera, WIOX (Catskills, NY)

Diane Reed — Nurses Rock! (Orlando, Florida) (Dr. Reed is a member of The Truth About Nursing's advisory panel)

Maureen McGrath — Sunday Night Health Show (formerly the Sunday Night Sex Show), CKNW (Vancouver, Canada)

Grey's Anatomy

Created by Shonda Rhimes; ABC

The veteran drama continued to largely ignore nurses and portray surgeons as providing all the hospital care that matters, with the occasional plotline showing active disrespect, especially by presenting a nurse as some momentary obstacle to a beleaguered surgeon's progress.

Good Sam

Created by Katie Wech; CBS

This hospital drama had heroic surgeons doing everything, with nurses seen as peripheral and inconsequential; one recurring nurse character occasionally displayed limited knowledge, but she served mainly to comment on the antics of the physicians.

Ignoring nursing; Countless news media sources; All year

For the many news articles that continue to discuss areas of health care in which nurses actually play important roles and could make contributions to the piece, but instead consult only physicians, and phrase their discussions in terms of what "doctors" see, say, think, or do, consistent with the findings of the Woodhull Study Revisited.

Johnson & Johnson

"Nurses Rise to the Challenge Every Day"

This 30-second television ad, airing during Nurses Week in May, offered a tribute that, despite some helpful elements, focused on nurses’ "grit" and willingness to give well over 100% - with no suggestion that maybe we should do something to improve those working conditions; the ad ended by claiming that the drug company has been "championing" nurses since 1897 and "like you, we’ll never stop."

City Steam Brewery, Hartford, Connecticut

This bar continues to promote and sell not one but two "Naughty Nurse" ales, an amber which is their "flagship ale," as well as an IPA. Complete with brain-dead, suggestive "nurse" imagery.

The Good Doctor

Created by David Shore; ABC

This show, which we have placed in the "worst" category since it appeared six years ago, still generally portrays physicians as the only ones who matter in the hospital setting, ignoring what nurses really do—when it is not showing physicians doing it—and at times presenting nurses as clueless ninnies who rely on physicians for all thinking and courage. However, starting in the middle of the fifth season, there have been occasional plotlines in which nurse Jerome Martel, who is mainly the physician Asher’s boyfriend, and nurse Dalisay Villanueva, who at first mainly received attention as the target of domestic violence, show some real clinical knowledge and skill.

Tara Ward

"Ten things Shortland Street has taught us about nursing," The Spinoff, August 4. This New Zealand publication, having reported on government plans to partner with the long-running soap opera Shortland Street to promote the image of nursing, ran this piece highlighting the seeming absurdity of using the show to promote the profession. The ten things included: "Your mum will also get a job at the hospital and then steal your boyfriend," and "You’ll pretend to be a patient to get pregnant with someone else’s triplets."

New Amsterdam

Created by David Schulner; NBC

In the final seasons of this hospital show, assistive minor nurse characters did occasionally show knowledge and skill, but the focus remained on the expert, life-saving physicians, who clearly supervised the nurses. In a couple episodes, the show tried to highlight real issues in nursing—with segments that portrayed nurses as helpless victims who had to be rescued by maverick physicians. One episode (season 4 episode 19) had the show’s lead physician managing the shortage of hospital nurses with "student nurses and volunteers"; for school nursing, parents could be trained as nursing assistants. In another episode (season 5 episode 5), a nurse was ready to let a patient die because she was too scared to override the medication dispenser, in the wake of fellow nurse’s criminal prosecution, in a plotline based on the Radonda Vaught situation; a surgeon saved that patient, and the lead physician persuaded the other nurses to stay on the job.

"How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?", episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, season 4 episode 8, March 11; written by Amy Sherman-Palladino; Amazon Prime Video

The show’s season finale offered a short tribute to nurses as unskilled female angels, but not as serious health professionals; apparently, unlike physicians, they don’t even get to use pens.